Video: Hard work has bakery business rising

Monday

Dec 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMDec 29, 2008 at 5:47 PM

The smell of fresh baked bread may be one of the best things on earth. And at Mamadou’s Artisan Bakery at 63 Swanton St., the aroma of French baguettes, peasant bread, multi-grain sourdough, whole-wheat raisin bread and more, fills the air from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week.

Eric Tsetsi

The smell of fresh baked bread may be one of the best things on earth. And at Mamadou’s Artisan Bakery at 63 Swanton St., the aroma of French baguettes, peasant bread, multi-grain sourdough, whole-wheat raisin bread and more, fills the air from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week.

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In an unobtrusive building across the street from the Swanton Street Diner, Winchester resident Mamadou Mbaye recently opened this bread lover’s haven.

Every Tuesday through Sunday, Mbaye arrives to his kitchen at about 12 a.m. and begins preparing dough, shaping it by hand and letting it ferment. The day doesn’t end until he closes the doors at 6 p.m.

“I’m a busy person,” he said with a weary smile. “I have a very short time to sleep.”

But at this point Mbaye is prepared to put in the long hours.

His bakery is just getting on its feet, but with the walk-in customers he’s attracting, supplemented by the larger deliveries he makes to area restaurants, Mbaye hopes to see a thriving business base in the near future.

“When you love something you get sucked into it,” he said. “If you put a lot of hard work and love into it, it’s amazing how it can work miracles sometimes.”

Mbaye, originally from Senegal, came to the United States in the early 1990s and moved to Winchester in 2001.

He began to delve into baking while working at Whole Foods Market. He was the bread trainer for the store chain’s entire northeast region for a number of years, until he decided to strike out on his own.

He began to make his name this past summer at local farmers’ markets. He would bake more than 300 loaves of bread per day for the markets in Winchester, Belmont and Arlington, he said.

Many of those loaves made their way into the hands of customers who have followed him to his new location, some driving miles to get their favorite baked goods.

“It’s just so fun for us, we just want to take it one step at a time and grow it from the ground up,” said Mbaye, of his business.

The outside of the bakery has yet to be fully decorated, but Mbaye said he’s in the process of getting a sign permit from the town to put up an awning he has waiting in the garage. He bought the building in June, 2007, and has slowly pieced together the necessary parts of the sparsely decorated, but sparkling clean and orderly kitchen.

“If they give the permit today, the sign will be up today,” he said.

Mbaye’s wife Mame and 8-year-old son, Aldemba, can often be found at the bakery during the week and on the weekends.

Mame takes care of the retail side of the business, and helps out with some of the baking, according to Mbaye. She took a leave of absence from her job as a flight attendant to help get the bakery off the ground.

As the business continues to grow, Mbaye eventually wants to have an area where people can sit and have a cup of coffee and a fresh pastry. He said he might even hire a couple employees some day.

But, “it’s just the beginning at this moment,” he said, adding, “Every beginning is always hard.”

Eric Tsetsi can be reached at 781-674-7731 or etsetsi@cnc.com.

Contact Them

The number to the bakery is 781-560-8068. Calls are welcomed, or stop in and see what Mbaye has fresh out of the oven today.